We Read the Percy Jackson Series
by Apollo'sTwinSister
Summary: Basically another one of the stories where the PJO and HOO characters go back in time and read the books with the gods. Post BoO Percabeth, Jiper, Frazel, Solangelo, whatever Thalia and Apollo's ship name is. And Poseidon and Athena will have a sort of love/hate relationship. Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians! Unfortunately. Rated T for language
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

 **This is my first story, so yah! It's basically where the demigods go back and read the Percy Jackson books. But since no one finishes them, I intend to do so! So, yah!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson because I'm not Rick Riordan. :(**

 **Percy's POV**

Sun was softly shining through the bright spring leaves of the forest. My friends and I sat on the border of the woods, watching satyrs and demigods alike picking strawberries from the fields. Birds swooped around us, weaving through the trees. All in all, the day seemed fairly normal until my friends and I were swept up in a bright light. And then we were dumped straight into the throne room of the Olympian gods, thrown among the screaming gods and goddesses who were yelling at each other so fiercely that the white marble columns were trembling. The stopped yelling the moment we flashed in, staring at us as the ground came closer. I quickly grabbed Annabeth's hand and used my powers to create a cushioned couch to catch us. I should probably introduce myself. My name is Perseus Achilles Jackson and I'm the so-called 'Savior' of Olympus. I've done all those things you've probably heard about and more. Get your wows out now. But even I was just prepared to keep us from becoming demigods mush. Unfortunately for Apollo, he had been standing on his throne and slipped, hitting the marble floor with an unpleasant plunk. Thalia started to giggle. Then she realized that she was laughing in the face of a god, blushed and assigned her gaze to the ground. Apollo hadn't even sat down when Zeus voice boomed,

"WHO DARES TO INTERUPT ME?"

Nico shrieked. Apollo (obviously ignoring his father's outburst) wolf-whistled and sauntered straight over to Thalia.

"Hey."

Artemis sighed, knowing that yet another girl would be swooped in by her brother's antics. But before Thalia could say another word, the demigods surrounded her and pointed weapons that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere at the god. She rolled her eyes and pushed her way through them.

"I can handle myself, thank you very much."

She walked straight up to him and grabbed his shirt, pulling him towards her and whispering something that made his tan face pale. She released him and he staggered backwards, quickly seating himself in his throne.

"Don't mess with a hunter of Artemis!" Thalia hissed.

Artemis's eyebrows rose with pleasure and a smug smirk plastered itself across her face as she flung her caramel curls over her shoulder. Apollo rolled his eyes, staring into his lap as his face went scarlet. This didn't go unnoticed by the goddess of love, who squealed mentally and rubbed her pink nailed fingers against one another. She then used those pink nails to catch a slip of charred parchment that fell from the domed ceiling. She flawless face frowned.

"It's from Rhea."

 _Dear Gods and Demigods,_

 _I know you must be confused. And I know that you demigods must be upset to be here when everything just got back to normal for you after the war and Leo just returned. But please hear me out. The Olympians have been fighting too much lately. They never get along with one another. They need to get along again before they cause a natural disaster. The future will not be bright for them if they continue this. Please read the stories with them and I hope that they'll bond with you and on another. I will be sending the 5 books to you now. And time will be frozen while you read these books. Demigods please introduce yourself but don't list your titles, as it will spoil the books. Say only your names and parents. And please, gods and goddesses don't get angry when you find out some of the children's parents. The whole points of this to get along so you better do just that._

 _Love,_

 _Rhea_

"Books?" Annabeth frowned.

Just as she said that, 5 books fell from nowhere in particular and plopped into her lap, bouncing off of her faded Bermuda shorts. She picked up the first one, her tan face paled and she gasped.

"Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief."

The whole room was speechless staring at the books, confusion written over each face. Finally, Annabeth cleared her throat.

"So, I'm Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena," she smiled at her mother who grinned in return.

"And I'm Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon," Percy continued grinning that grin of his at his father.

Zeus frowned but said nothing. All the demigods introduced themselves. Piper, Jason, Hazel, Frank, Leo, Nico, Thalia, Will, Clarisse, Rachael and Grover who didn't have a god or goddess as a parent was about to say something when Dionysus cleared his throat, shifting around in his throne entangled in vines causing poor Grover to jump.

"I'm a satyr," he wiped his sweaty palms off on his shaggy legs and gulped.

Annabeth sighed in exasperation and opened the first book

"I'll read the first chapter then," she opened the book, " **Chapter 1: I Accidently Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher."**

 **The prologue is officially done! Do you like it? Yes? No? Still, Please Review! And Bye!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 1: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher**

 **So, here's chapter 1! Hope you enjoy!**

"I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher," Annabeth read.

"How do you do that?" Jason asked.

Percy shrugged.

 **Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

"Who does?" The demigods said.

 **If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:**

"He's giving advice!" Thalia said in horror.

 **Close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"That is actually good advice," Nico said, his eyebrows raised is slight shock.

"Obviously!" Percy bragged.

 **Being a half blood is dangerous.**

"Spot on!" Clarisse yelled.

 **It's scary.**

"Totally," Piper pouted.

 **Most of the time it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways**

"Very nasty," Nico frowned.

The gods exchanged glances. _Was it really so bad?_

 **If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"We all do," Will replied.

 **But I if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time** _ **they**_ **sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

"So true," Nico murmured, ignoring his father's stare.

 **Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"You couldn't," Thalia said sympathetically.

 **My name is Percy Jackson**. **I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

Thalia wrinkled her noes.

 **Am I a troubled kid?**

"Hell to the yes!" Nico smirked. Then he caught Will grinning at him, blushed and dropped his head to his lap. Both Piper and Aphrodite shrieked mentally.

 **Yeah. You could say that. I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it,**

Poseidon cringed.

 **But things really started going bad last May, when our sixth grade class took a field trip to Manhattan-twenty-eight mental case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at Ancient Greek and Roman Stuff.**

"Sounds fun!" Athena mused.

 **I know-it sounds like torture.**

Athena huffed, crossing her arms and throwing a death glare at Apollo, who was stifling a laugh. Where she failed to notice her own daughter had pressed a hand to her mouth. Said daughter quickly composed herself and continued reading.

 **But Mr. Brunner, out Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

"Is that?" Jason asked.

"Yup," Thalia answered.

 **Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheel chair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman games and weapons, so he was the only teacher who's class didn't put me to sleep.**

"How dare you?" Athena shrieked.

Annabeth snorted and blushed when her mother stared at her, mouth slightly ajar. She cleared her throat and continued reading.

 **I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

"You thought!" Thalia smirked and everyone laughed at Percy's sheepish grin.

The gods, however, exchanged confused glances. _What was this 'you thought' they spoke of?_

 **Boy, was I wrong.**

Annabeth smirked at Percy and he laughed pulling her close to his chest, where she snuggled up against him. Unaware of Athena's piercing expression, Annabeth continued reading.

 **See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

"PFFTTTT!" Thalia and Nico burst out laughing.

 **And before that, at my fourth grade school, when we took a behind the scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.**

By now, even the gods were laughing along with their children, as Percy blushed crimson.

 **And the time before that…Well you get the idea.**

"Don't stop!" Thalia shrieked. With a shuddering gasp, she fell off the couch and landed on the ground, still laughing her head off. But when Apollo picked her up bride-style, she punched him in the chest.

"Put me down!" she yelled at him. He flashed his bright teeth at Thalia and she hissed at him.

"Much obliged," he grinned wider when she raised an eyebrow.

He plopped her on the couch and she shrieked as she fell onto Nico's lap, immediately kicking him away and sitting herself in her spot, brushing off her punk style clothes. Annabeth snickered at her embarrassed friend and opened her mouth.

 **This trip, I was determined to be good. All the way, I had to put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, red headed, kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter and ketchup sandwich.**

"Ew!" Aphrodite squealed.

 **Grover was an easy target.**

"How kind." Thalia stated.

 **He was scrawny.**

"Wow, Perce."

 **He cried when he got frustrated.**

Annabeth shook her head sadly.

 **He must have been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin.**

"Hahhhh."Grover sighed

 **On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs.**

 **He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should have seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"You blew your secret for enchiladas!" Annabeth said in exasperation. Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple, trying to stammer an excuse. Annabeth scoffed and continued reading.

 **Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death**

"WHAT!" Annabeth shrieked.

"Read the next line." Percy grinned.

 **by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Oh." Annabeth blushed. Percy grinned and kissed the top of her hair.

"Good to know you care." He smiled happily.

Annabeth and Poseidon were staring at their children-Athena suspicious, Poseidon dumbstruck.

 **"I'm going to kill her, " I mumbled.**

"Me too." Thalia and Nico said creepily in sync.

 **Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter. "**

"Not in my hair I don't." Grover mumbled under his breath.

 **He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch. "That's it. " I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. "You're already on probation, " he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens. "**

"Me." Percy pouted.

 **Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

"How dark." Nico mused.

"Very." Hades grinned darkly.

Annabeth averted her eyes and continued reading.

 **Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

"Yeah!" Leo yelled.

Everyone jumped, not having heard him since he introduced himself.

"I planned that. And it **did** scare you!"

He proceeded to dance on the couch until Jason pushed him off. Annabeth stifled her giggles and continued to read on.

 **He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

"Really old black and orange pottery?" Athena rolled her eyes at the demigod.

Poseidon glared at Athena and she returned it.

 **It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"More than that." Annabeth muttered.

 **He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a** _ **stele**_ **, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"Is she?" Jason hissed to Piper.

"A monster? Probably." Piper murmured.

 **Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old.**

"Icky!" Aphrodite shrieked **.**

 **She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker.**

"Yeah!" Ares screamed.

 **She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"Nervous breakdown. Please." Hazel whispered.

 **From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn.**

"Typical." Annabeth frowned.

 **She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey, " real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"Harsh." Hermes sighed.

"Totally, man." Apollo agreed.

 **One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right. "**

"Totally blowing you cover. Again." Thalia shot Grover a look.

"Oops." He blushed

 **Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"**

"That was a dumb move," Hermes said.

"Yeah!" Ares shouted yet again.

 **It came out louder than I meant it to.**

"Of course it did," Apollo said sadly

 **The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

 **"Mr. Jackson, " he said, "did you have a comment?"**

"Mr. Jackson," Thalia mimicked, " did you have a comment?"

"No sir." Nico mimicked Percy.

"Hey! I do not sound like that!"

"Yes you do!" Nico laughed

Quicker than a snapping turtle, Percy was towering over Nico, sword raised.

"You want to go?" He brandished his sword.

"Definitely!" Nico grinned, slightly manically.

He pulled out his Stygian Iron sword and leaped up form the couch. Not a moment later, they were circling each other, their faces dark, in battle mode. The only noise was Ares cheering; stuffing popcorn drizzled in what looked suspiciously like blood into his mouth. Aphrodite grimaced loudly at the goo dripping from his cleft chin. (AN: he doesn't really have a cleft chin, but it sounds better.) That was enough to make the god of war stop cheering and his bloody popcorn vanished. With his hand holding up his face, he rested his elbow on the arm of his throne and pouted.

Annabeth's eyes went stormy and dark and she called out, " Sit down, NOW! I'm reading!"

The two powerful children of two powerful gods pouted and returned to the couch, returning their weapons to where they were before. Annabeth cleared her throat pointedly.

 **My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir. "**

"Ha!" Leo laughed.

 **Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

"Dude, you got owned!" Apollo grinned, throwing a wink at Thalia who blushed. Aphrodite squealed softly.

 **I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

The gods who had spent their childhood in their fathers' stomach shuddered.

 **"Yes, " Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because..."**

"Yeah, why did he?" Zeus sighed

 **"Well... " I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"**

"GOD?" Zeus thundered. Annabeth hurried on, wanting to avoid a natural disaster.

 **"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

 **"Titan, " I corrected myself.**

"Good." Zeus nodded.

 **"And ... He didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

"Mother always loved me best," Zeus grinned, earning glares from his siblings.

 **And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"**

"Eeew!" Aphrodite shrieked.

 **"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

 **"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans, " I continued, "and the gods won. "**

"He summed up years of fighting in just a few sentences." Athena said

"This kid is amazing!" Hermes laughed.

 **Some snickers from the group.**

Hermes raised a brow.

 **Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids. '"**

"You will if you're a demigod!" Athena grumbled.

 **"And why, Mr. Jackson, " Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted," Grover grinned.

 **"Busted, " Grover muttered.**

Everyone laughed.

 **"Shut up, " Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

 **At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"Try horse ears!" Nico smirked.

 **I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir. "**

"Of course not," Athena muttered. Poseidon glared.

 **"I see. " Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach.**

"Worse time of my life," Hera sighed, "No hot gods to elope with,"

"Hey!" the 'not hot' gods cried in unison.

 **The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"Heh,"

 **The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doo-fuses.**

"Because they are doo-fuses," Artemis sniffed.

Thalia nodded and only she noticed Apollo's shoulders slump. She obviously started blushing.

 **Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson. "**

" Uh oh." Hermes said.

 **I knew that was coming.**

"What?" Ares bellowed. Clarisse grinned.

 **I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

"Ooh! Busted..." Nico murmured to Leo who grinned in return.

 **Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"More than a thousand years," Athena said.

 **"You must learn the answer to my question, " Mr. Brunner told me.**

"Obviously," Annabeth sighed.

 **"About the Titans?"**

 **"About real life. And how your studies apply to it. "Oh. "**

 **"What you learn from me, " he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. " I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard**.

"We all do," Will said and Nico blushed (trying to smother an un-Nico like grin too) after he realized that Will's arm was lazy perched on the back of the couch right behind him. Apollo grinned at his son, yet he couldn't have helped but be jealous that Nico obviously liked Will as well when Thalia...

 **I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman per-son who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

"Cool!" Thalia grinned. Apollo took a deep breath. She was so beautiful. But, when Hermes shot him a questioning look he mouthed, I'll _tell you later._

 **But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life.**

"Never?" Athena gasped.

 **No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

"You'd better try," Athena muttered

 **I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"He probably was," Nico mused.

 **He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

 **Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.**

Thalia shot her father a look and when the king of the gods actually blushed she giggled. _Forget beautiful,_ Apollo thought, _She's downright sexy...And sixteen!_ The god quickly shook his head, clearing his thoughts, but continued to stare at Thalia, but not very discreetly, as Aphrodite had to bite her tongue to keep from screeching.

 **I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snowstorms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

"Close," Hazel said

 **Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

 **Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"Aw..." Aphrodite pouted.

 **"Detention?" Grover asked.**

 **"Nah, " I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius. "**

"Obviously not." Nico smirked **.** Percy glared at him and he shrunk back, tensing when he felt Will's arm burning into his back making his whole body warm up and causing him to look really awkward most likely.

 **Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Everyone bursts out laughing. When Annabeth brushed a few tears from her eyes and continued reading.

 **I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

"Sorry about that Perce." Grover blushed.

"It's all right," Percy grinned good-naturedly.

 **I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Aw," Said Artemis, "All boys should love their mothers this much."

"How could anyone not love Sally." Nico stated. All the boys nodded enthusiastically and Artemis was slightly shocked that these men were not idiots.

 **Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

"Awesome!" Leo grinned, "I'm going to make one of those!" He bobbed his head contently.

 **I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"How dare she!" Hazel shrieked, glaring at the book. Grover stared at his lap.

 **"Oops. " She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray- painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"I will never have another bag of Cheetos again?" Leo stated.

"What are Cheetos?" Frank actually appeared confused.

"Those orange chips that I had Connor and Travis smuggle into camp yesterday," Percy said, grinned. Poseidon grinned proudly.

 **I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper.**

"Not going to work," Hermes sighed.

 **" But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"A wave." Athena said flatly.

 **I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

 **Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

" **Uh oh,"**

 **Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**

" **See what?" Ares yelled.**

 **"-the water-"**

" **The water did what?" Ares asked the book.**

 **"-like it grabbed her-"**

" **Then I don't care he said**

 **I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

"Yup." Apollo popped the p.

 **As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc. , etc. , Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"**

 **"I know, " I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks. "**

"You just her more angry," Hermes sighed.

 **That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"Obviously not," said Apollo.

 **"Come with me, " Mrs. Dodds said.**

"Don't," Hermes said.

 **"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her. "**

"What?" Ares said.

 **I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

"She still does," Grover shuddered.

 **She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

 **"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood, " she said.**

 **"But-"**

 **"You-will-stay-here. "**

"Don't," Hermes repeated.

 **Grover looked at me desperately.**

 **"It's okay, man, " I told him. "Thanks for trying. "**

"It's not okay," Jason said. Piper nodded.

 **"Honey, " Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now. "**

 **Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

"That bit-!"Nico cut Thalia off. Before Thalia could kill him Annabeth focused on the book again.

 **I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

"Not a good sign," Hermes muttered. By now, everyone had guessed that Mrs. Dodds was a monster.

 **How'd she get there so fast?**

"It's obvious," Athena replied.

 **I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

" I'm not so sure," Apollo said.

 **I wasn't so sure.**

"Ha," Apollo and Percy chuckled.

 **I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

"No," Hermes moaned.

 **Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"What?" Athena looked shocked.

 **I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

"Not good." Hermes muttered.

 **Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"I wish," Percy sighed.

 **But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

"Of course not," Hermes said.

 **I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

"Not good at all," Hermes looked worried.

 **Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

"Really bad," Apollo gulped.

 **Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

"Growling?" Hermes made a face.

 **Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

"She probably would if she could," Hermes said.

 **"You've been giving us problems, honey, " she said.**

 **I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am. "**

"Good." Hermes nodded.

 **She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

"With what?" Zeus frowned.

 **The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

"Not good," Apollo whimpered.

 **She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"She would probably love to man," Frank said. Percy pouted.

 **I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am.**

 **Thunder shook the building.**

"Thunder?" Thalia swung her head sharply towards her father.

 **"We are not fools, Percy Jackson, " Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain. "**

"Confess to what?" Poseidon said.

 **I didn't know what she was talking about.**

"Neither do I," Aphrodite whined.

 **All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

Apollo and Hermes laughed their eyes out. Athena glared at Percy who looked away quickly.

 **"Well?" she demanded.**

"Well, what?" Frank frowned.

 **"Ma'am, I don't... "**

 **"Your time is up, " she hissed.**

Percy frowned and tightened his grip around Annabeth.

 **Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"YOU SENT A FURY AFTER MY SON?" Poseidon roared, glaring at Hades who looked utterly confused.

 **Then things got even stranger.**

"Oh?" Artemis raised an eyebrow.

 **Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, though Poseidon was still glaring at Hades.

 **"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

 **Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

"No." Apollo gasped.

 **With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

Cue another sigh of relief.

 **Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

 **My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"Wimp," Ares grinned. He was soon doused in water and had a glare off with Poseidon.

 **She snarled, "Die, honey!" And she flew straight at me.**

 **Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"How is that natural?" Hestia asked. Everyone jumped and Percy just shrugged.

"It's natural if you're a demigod." Annabeth said.

 **The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!**

 **Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

"Creepy," Hazel shuddered.

 **I was alone. There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

"The mist," Hazel said.

 **My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or some-thing.**

"Uh? Magic mushrooms? Really?" Hermes asked. Percy grinned.

 **Had I imagined the whole thing?**

"No."

 **I went back outside. It had started to rain.**

"Some glances were thrown at Poseidon.

 **Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt. "**

"Who?" Clarisse asked.

 **I said, "Who?"**

Clarisse frowned. "That didn't happen," she said

 **"Our teacher. Duh!"**

 **I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away. I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was. He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Grover, you can't lie for your life." Thalia shook her head

 **"Not funny, man, " I told him. "This is serious. " Thunder boomed overhead.**

"I agree," Zeus said.

 **I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him. He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson.**

"Yes, Mr. Jackson," Thalia laughed, "Don't steal the centaur's pen. **"**

 **I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it. "Sir, " I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

 **He stared at me blankly. "Who?" "The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher. " He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"And done," Annabeth slammed the book shut. "Who's reading next?"

"I'll read," Hestia said. Annabeth tossed her the book and she opened it.

" **Chapter 2,"** she read, **" Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death,"**

 **That took a while to write! But it's done. Anyway, thanks for the 5 reviews I got, but when I try to go read them, it says no reviews found, so I'll have to fix that somehow. Bye!**

 **-5244 words**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2**

 **And chapter 2 is up!**

" **Chapter 2,"** Hestia read, **"Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death,"  
** Hestia's eyebrows shot into her bangs, but she continued reading.  
 **I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty- four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some  
kind of trick on me.  
**"So gullible, Thalia murmured.  
 **The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.  
** "I don't like perky people," Hades grimaced, "They piss me off,"  
Nico nodded.  
 **Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.  
** "He is psycho," Leo said, "And so am I!"  
"Yeah!" Percy bobbed his head.  
 **It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed. Almost.  
** "But?" Athena said.  
 **But Grover couldn't fool me.  
** Grover blushed, pulling the collar of his avatar jacket up around his neck.  
 **When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.  
** Thalia shook her head at Grover and he blushed a deeper shade of red.  
 **Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.  
** "Obviously," Jason sighed, "It doesn't take a genius to notice that."  
Percy stuck his tongue out at Jason.  
 **I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.  
** "I feel you," all the demigods nodded.  
 **The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy.  
** Thalia and Jason glared at their father, who shrunk down in his throne. **  
One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.  
** Percy shot his father a questioning look, and he turned away.  
 **I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.  
** Athena shrieked, obviously not understanding how anyone could receive an F.  
 **I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.  
** "So glad he's not my son," Athena said.  
Both Poseidon and Percy glared at her, but it didn't seem to affect her.

 **Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.  
** Annabeth laughed.  
"What's an old sot?" Hazel asked.  
Annabeth giggled. "A drunk person,"  
Everyone else laughed along with her. **  
The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.  
** "Ooh," Leo sing-songed. **  
Fine, I told myself. Just fine. I was homesick.  
** "Ew," Ares stuck his tongue out.  
 **I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.  
** "Paul has poker parties?" Frank asked.  
Percy face had become closed off.  
"That was Gabe."  
 **And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees.  
** "Sounds nice," Hazel mused.  
 **I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.  
** "Kind of sweet," Aphrodite said.  
 **I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.  
** "Aw," Aphrodite smiled.  
 **As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.  
** "What?" Athena shrieked. Everyone else ignored her. **  
I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.  
** "Good," Hermes said, "If you wan to live,"  
 **The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one- eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.  
** "It's not very hard," Athena said.  
"Maybe for you," Percy grumbled.  
 **I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.  
** "That's a nasty image," Nico said.  
The others nodded.  
 **I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.  
** "He's a good teacher," Athena smiled.  
"For once we agree on something," Poseidon said. The goddess of wisdom's heart began to pound. Whatever, she thought. I don't care.  
 **I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book. I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.  
** "That's cute," Aphrodite beamed.  
 **I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy, sir."  
** "Oh?" Apollo asked.  
 **I froze. I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.  
** "True," Hermes nodded.  
 **I inched closer. "... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"  
** "Know what?" Zeus frowned."  
Percy shifted uncomfortably. **  
"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more." "But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line- "  
** "The solstice dead-line?" Artemis frowned, " What does that have to do with it  
 **"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can." "Sir, he saw her... ." "His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."  
** "No it wasn't," Thalia stated.  
 **"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."  
** Thalia swung around to face Grover.  
"It's not your fault, so stop blaming yourself!" she barked at him and he nodded hastily.  
"What's not his fault?" Zeus asked.  
"Er," Thalia stammered, "You'll find out later,"  
Hestia took the opportunity to begin reading.  
 **"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"  
** "Oh not good," Hermes frowned.  
 **The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.  
** "You just gave away your position," Hermes frowned.  
 **Mr. Brunner went silent.  
** "He knows you're there," Hermes stated the obvious.  
 **My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.  
** "He left his wheelchair?" Piper raised her eyebrows.  
 **I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**  
 **A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."  
** "What happened at the solstice?" Zeus demanded. No answer.  
 **"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**  
 **"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow." "Don't remind me."  
The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.  
I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm. Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.  
**"You finally do something right," Thalia nodded.  
Grover stuck his tongue out at her.  
 **"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"  
** "Doubt it," Clarisse said.  
 **I didn't answer. "You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?" "Just... tired." I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.  
** "Doesn't matter," Dionysus muttered, "He'll read your emotions."  
 **I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**  
"You didn't." Jason said. **  
But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.  
** "You were." Nico said.  
 **The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. "Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."  
** "Harsh," Grover said, his nose wrinkled.  
 **His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.  
** "I want to rip her head off!" Thalia growled fiercely.

 **I mumbled, "Okay, sir." "I mean..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."  
** "He makes it sound so mean," Frank frowned.  
 **My eyes stung. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.  
** "Of course you got the wrong idea," Athena said  
 **"Right," I said, trembling. "No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-"  
** "Mr. Brunner," Thalia sighed. Percy shook his head.  
 **"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.  
"Percy-"  
But I was already gone.  
On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.  
**"Not true," Apollo grinned, "Look at us,"  
 **They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall. "Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool." They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.  
** Aphrodite sniffed, "That's rude,"  
 **The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.  
** "Of course you did," Thalia smirked.  
 **During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.  
** "Not exactly," Grover murmured.  
 **Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"  
** Hermes rolled his eyes.  
"Bad move," Apollo said.  
 **Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"  
** "Grover, you are a horrible liar," Thalia said.  
"Shut up," Grover hissed.  
 **I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.  
** "Why did you do that!?" Ares exclaimed.  
Percy shrugged.  
 **Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?" "Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?" He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..." "Grover-" "And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."  
** "He's a horrible liar," Demeter said.  
 **"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar." His ears turned pink.  
** The satyr's ears went read as everyone laughed at him. **  
From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer. The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

 **Grover Underwood Keeper**

 **Half-Blood Hill  
Long Island, New York (800) 009-0009 **

**"What's Half-"  
"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."  
**Clarisse snorted, "Summer address," she rolled her eyes, "Puh-lease."  
 **My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy. "Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion." He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."  
"Why would I need you?"  
**"Harsh," Hermes winced. **  
It came out harsher than I meant it to. Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you." I stared at him. All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.  
** "Aw," Aphrodite cooed.  
 **And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me. "Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"  
** "Yeah, what is Percy being protected from?" Poseidon asked, eyebrows knitted together.  
 **There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.  
** "Ew," Piper pulled a face.  
 **The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway. After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

 **We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.  
** Everyone's breath hitched and Annabeth swiveled towards Percy.  
"You saw the furies?" Her voice shook. Percy awkwardly adverted his gaze.  
 **I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.  
** "P-Percy?" Annnabeth whispered.  
 **All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.  
** "How?" Poseidon muttered.  
 **The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.  
** Annabeth whimpered and Percy stroked her hair soothingly. Athena was in too much shock to notice.  
 **I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.  
** Grover looked into his lap.  
 **Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-" "Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?" "Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"  
** "Not funny."  
 **"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."  
** No one laughed this time.  
 **The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.  
** Percy tightened his grip on Annabeth.  
 **"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."  
"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."  
"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.  
**"No," Hermes gulped.  
 **Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic.  
** Annabeth buried her head into Percy's chest.  
 **Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla. At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. The passengers cheered.  
** No cheered in the throne room. **  
"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!" Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.  
Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.  
"Grover?"  
"Yeah?"  
"What are you not telling me?"  
**"Yeah, Grover!" Ares bellowed and Grover flinched.  
 **He dabbed his forehead with his shirtsleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?" "You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"  
** "Worse,"  
 **His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw." "The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn." He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older.  
** "Observant," Hermes took a shaky breath.  
 **He said, "You saw her snip the cord." "Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal. "This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time." "What last time?"  
"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."  
"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?" "Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me.  
**"Percy doesn't keep most promises." Nico nodded.  
"Shut up!" Percy glared at Nico.  
 **This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.  
"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.  
No answer.  
"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"  
He looked at me mournfully; like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.  
**"That was deep," Will said.  
Hestia closed the book gently.  
"Anyone else want to read?" She said softly.  
Poseidon raised his hand and she tossed the book to him.  
He coughed, " **Chapter 3** ,"Poseidon read, " **Grover unexpectedly loses his pants**."

 **And the second chapter is done! Thank to the people who reviewed and please keep reviewing! Next chapter should be up soon-ish. Bye!**

 **-3,500 words**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 3**

 **Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.  
** "Rude!" Hermes gasped. **  
**Percy stared at the ground.  
 **I know, I know. It was rude.  
** "No duh," Leo raised a brow. **  
But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"  
** "Wow Grover," Annabeth shook her head.  
Thalia nodded. Grover blushed.  
 **Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.  
** "That was dumb," Jason stated.  
"Yeah," Will nodded **.  
"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver. A word about my mother, before you meet her.  
**"Knowing Percy, it'll be more than one word." Nico smirked. Percy stuck his tongue out at him. Thalia stifled a laugh. **  
Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.  
** "See," Nico announced, "More like a paragraph."  
"Shut up," Percy glared.  
 **The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

Poseidon smiled softly. Athena frowned.

 **I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

 **See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.  
** "Hmmph," Hermes snorted.

Percy bit his lip.

 **Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.  
** "It's actually kind of true," Thalia mused.

 **She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"You are not," Nico said, "How does Sally put up with you?"

"I said shut up," Percy hissed. The gods raised a brow at his abrupt frightening threat.

"You know what," Nico grinned slyly, "I'd fancy me a fight."

Percy smirked, "Me too,"

And then they were circling each other, weapons drawn.

"Hey! You aren't going to fight while Annabeth is reading and you are definitely not fighting while I'm reading!" Poseidon commanded.

"Yes, dad," Percy sighed and plopped down next to Annabeth. Nico sighed and sat down too.

 **Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk.**

Poseidon bared his teeth,

 **When I was young, I nick-named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Some laughs echoed across the room.

 **Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

 **I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

"Ew," Aphrodite wrinkled her nose.

 **Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

 **"Where's my mom?"**

 **"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"How dare he?" Poseidon hissed.

 **That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**

 **Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

Aphrodite shuddered.

 **He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

"I'm going to kill him," Artemis said, "Men disgust me,"

"They can be revolting," Thalia nodded. Apollo but his lip and stared at his hands, ignoring Hermes' inquiring gaze.

 **"I don't have any cash," I told him. He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

Aphrodite retched slightly.

 **Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

A few people laughed.

 **"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

 **Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"Good to know that not all men are disgusting," Artemis said

 **"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.  
Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony. **

"I take that back," Artemis grimaced.

 **"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

 **"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

Poseidon crackled his knuckles. Percy gulped.

 **I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

The gods glared at the book.

 **I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

 **Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

"How is that possible?" Nico asked.

"I did say he reeked," Percy shrugged.

 **But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone- something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

Everyone took a sharp intake of breath.

 **Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

Ares snorted. Aphrodite glared at him. Hephaestus smiled slightly.Ares growled at the two.

 **She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

Aphrodite cooed.

 **My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

"She's amazing," Artemis was shocked.

Aphrodite nodded. Athena shifted in her throne.

 **"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

 **Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Mhm," Apollo licked his lips. Thalia tried not to faint.

 **We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

"Momma's boy," Ares snorted. Percy and Poseidon glared at him. Aphrodite threw her heels at his head, hitting him square on the forehead. He moaned and rubbed his face as Aphrodite's heel reappeared on her foot.

 **I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

 **From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?"**

Poseidon gritted his teeth.

 **I gritted my teeth.**

Some nervous titters.

 **My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"Very true," Nico nodded. All the demigods who had met Sally agreed.

 **For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion.**

"Liar." Demeter shook her head, "You should never lie to your mother,"

Hera rolled her eyes.

 **I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

"Aw," Aphrodite smiled.

 **Until that trip to the museum ...**

"Stupid," Hermes sighed. Percy's face scrunched up.

 **"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my con-science, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

 **"No, Mom."**

 **I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"You wouldn't," Zeus said.

 **She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

 **"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

Dionysus looked up.

 **My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

"Montauk?" Piper frowned.

"Yeah," Percy smiled fondly.

 **"Three nights-same cabin."**

 **"When?"**

 **She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

 **I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

Aphrodite scoffed, her eyes frightening.

 **Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

Some threats were muttered.

 **I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

"Sounds hard." Leo pulled a face. Percy nodded seriously. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

 **"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip." Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

"He won't let them go," Jason scowled.

"He'd better," Aphrodite hissed. Artemis agreed. **  
"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

Jason's eyes widened. Leo started to cry and told the room that Jason will always be alive in his heart, even after he dies of Percy syndrome. He got smacked in the head.

 **"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

 **Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

Aphrodite gasped and threw an evil look at the book.

 **"Yes, honey," my mother said.  
"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."  
"We'll be very careful." **

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

 **Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"Do it," Ares moaned.

Aphrodite rolled her eyes.

 **But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

 **Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

Percy clenched his fists. Then Annabeth stroked his hair and he relaxed. Aphrodite squealed and Athena glared at her daughter, who ignored her.

 **"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

Hermes snorted. Apollo smirked.

 **Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement. "Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

"He's such an idiot," Poseidon spat.

Percy nodded, his eyes closed as Annabeth calmly raked her fingers through his hair. Finally, Athena had enough.

"Why are you stroking his hair, Annabeth?" She glared at the two. Annabeth stared at her feet. Percy refused to open his eyes.

"Yeah," Poseidon agreed, "Why are you touching my son's hair?"

Athena told him to shut his mouth and then they began to yell at each other. This time, it was Aphrodite who had enough.

"Stop it!" She yelled, "Just leave them alone." Athena and Poseidon didn't dare disobey Aphrodite when she got mad. And she was seething. They sat, fuming, and Percy placed his head on Annabeth's lap and she resumed stroking his hair.

Aphrodite and Piper moth screeched mentally. Poseidon and Athena huffed. **  
He went back to his game.**

 **"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgot-ten to tell me, okay?"**

"Busted," Will murmured.

 **For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

 **But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken.**

"Sure," Ares growled.

 **She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

"Hah," Apollo sighed.

 **An hour later we were ready to leave.**

"Took long enough," Leo mumbled.

 **Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his '78 Camaro-for the whole weekend.**

"More important!" Aphrodite screeched.

 **"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

"Like he would be driving," Poseidon seethed.

 **Like I'd be the one driving.**

Gods, goddesses and demigods alike laughed their heads of at the sea god an dhis son.

 **I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

Leo grinned mischievously.

 **Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon.**

"Cool," Nico said. Percy nodded.

 **Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges,**

"Doubt it," Hermes muttered.

 **but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

 **I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

 **Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

Aphrodite's pulled a face. As did Piper.

 **I loved the place.**

Cue some laughs.

 **We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

Poseidon smiled fondly.

 **As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

 **We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"Why blue?" Athena asked.

 **I guess I should explain the blue food.**

 **See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"More like a reckless streak," Thalia said. Percy glared at her.

 **When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

A smile was on most faces.

 **Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

Percy grinned.

 **"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

"Obviously," Athena scoffed. Everyone glared at her.

 **Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

 **I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

Poseidon frowned.

 **"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

 **She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

 **"But... he knew me as a baby."**

 **"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

The room got sad.

 **I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

Some people smiled.

 **I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me ...**

 **I felt angry at my father.**

Poseidon cringed.

 **Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

Cue another cringe. Then a glare at Zeus, who looked extremely uncomfortable.

 **"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

 **She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

 **"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

 **"Because you don't want me around?"**

"You said the wrong thing," Hermes sighed. Percy bit his lip.

 **I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"Good," Apollo nodded.

 **My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

 **Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said-that it was best for me to leave Yancy. "Because I'm not normal," I said.**

"Exactly," Nico declared. Percy glared at him.

 **"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

"Safe from what?" Athena asked.

 **"Safe from what?"**

Everyone laughed as Athena gagged and Percy shuddered.

 **She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

"You obviously didn't forget," Leo said.

"No duh, Leo," Percy rolled his eyes.

 **During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

Poseidon frowned. _Why did her send a Cyclops to his son? Probably to check on him, he decided._

 **Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into.**

Aphrodite shuddered.

 **My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

Ares looked mildly impressed.

 **In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

 **I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword.**

"You should," Artemis said, "Don't disrespect your mother," She was ignored.

 **But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

Hermes scoffed.

 **"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

 **"My father wanted me to go to a special school?" "Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

"Yeah!" Nico said. When everyone stared at him, he blushed.

 **My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born- talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

"True," Percy said, agreeing with himself. The woman in the room rolled their eyes.

 **"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

 **"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

 **She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

Poseidon's brow creased.

 **That night I had a vivid dream.**

 **It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful ani-mals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

Zeus and Poseidon exchanged a look..

 **The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuck-led somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

 **I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!**

 **I woke with a start.**

"I won," Zeus said flatly. Poseidon replied by dousing him in water and grinning as his brother spluttered.

 **Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

 **With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

"That's crazy," Hera raised a perfectly arched brow.

 **I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.**

Some looks were thrown at Poseidon.

 **Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

Hestia frowned.

 **Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

"Who?" Leo frowned.

 **My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

 **Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"What does that mean? Piper asked. Percy replied with, "You'll see,"

 **"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"  
My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come. **

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

"Busted," Nico smirked. Percy glared at him.

 **I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

 **"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled.**

Hestia snorted, drawing a few surprised glances that she ignored.

 **"It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"**

 **I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on-**

"What?" Leo asked.

Grover squirmed.

 **and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

 **My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"**

 **I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

 **She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"**

"Yeah! Go!" Ares shouted.

 **Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

 **Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"And that's it," Poseidon said, "Who's reading now?"

"I'll read," Thalia offered. Poseidon created a wave to carry the book to her.

"Show off," she murmured as she opened the book, "My mother teaches me bullfighting,"

 **And chapter 3 is done. Sorry that this is kinda late. Happy Martin Luther King day and bye!**

 **~4,756 words**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 4**

" **My mother teaches me bull fighting,"** she read.

"Uh oh," Nico said.

Leo agreed, "That doesn't sound great,"

Percy grimaced.

 **We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"That's how you should drive," Ares grinned.

 **Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

"Ew," Aphrodite wrinkled her nose.

 **But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

Grover growled at Percy. Athena snickered.

 **All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

"That sounds so wrong," Leo laughed.

Apollo raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well. Um.." Leo's face reddened After everyone was confused for a moment, it came to them. Athena blushed and stuffed her hands in hands. Aphrodite shrieked. Poseidon glared at Leo and Grover. Zeus smirked at his brother. Hades sighed. Apollo grinned and began to fantasize until Artemis slapped him. Hermes giggled very un-manlike. Demeter wrinkled her nose. Hera stared at Zeus, who began to blush. Hestia sighed. The demigods attacked Leo. When they returned to their spots, Leo had a bunch of red hand prints al over his face and was shuddering. Thalia cleared her throat.

 **Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

Nico grinned, "Stalker," Grover threw a tin can at his head and everyone burst out laughing.

 **"Watching me?"**

"See? Percy agrees," Nico nodded. Percy rolled his eyes.

 **"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."**

"Obviously," Hazel said.

 **"Urn ... what are you, exactly?"**

Hermes snorted, "Rude,"

Percy blushed and Annabeth grinned and snuggled up against him. Athena frowned. She would have a discussion with the other gods about this. After she _talked_ to Annabeth about her choices in boyfriends.

 **"That doesn't matter right now."**

 **"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"**

 **Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"**

Racheal snorted.

 **I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

 **"Goat!" he cried.**

 **"What?"**

 **"I'm a goat from the waist down."  
** "You said it didn't matter," Jason said. Grover just huffed in response. **  
"You just said it didn't matter."**

Nico laughed full out in their faces. **  
"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!" "Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

Athena frowned, "He's not going to like that," **  
"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"  
** "Knew it," She murmured.

 **"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"  
"Of course."  
"Then why-" **

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious.**

"It should," Thalia smirked. Percy stuck his tongue out at her.

 **"We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

 **"Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

"Dimwit," Athena murmured yet again. Poseidon glared at her.

 **The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

"Creepy," Hermes muttered.

 **"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

 **"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

"Everyone," Poseidon sighed sadly.

 **"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Grover, really?" Thalia groaned, "Idiot,"

"Shut up," he hissed, "I panicked."

"Obviously," Zeus said.

 **"Grover!"  
"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?" **

"Yeah!" Ares yelled.

 **I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

"I have trouble believing that," Thalia laughed. Percy was about to come with a counter argument, but then his stomach rumbled.

"You know what?" he sighed, "I'm too hungry to deal with you, Thals,"

"We'll eat dinner after this," Poseidon promised, "Then you can go sleep," Nico smiled.

"Good," he grinned sleepily.

 **My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

Clarisse licked her lips. Nico drooled a bit. Percy's stomach rumbled again. Aphrodite grimaced.

 **"Where are we going?" I asked.**

 **"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

 **"The place you didn't want me to go."**

"Burn," Leo laughed maniacally and his hands lit on fire. Jason scooted away from him. The gods stared. _Okay, he can light himself on fire,_ Hephaestus thought, _He will be fine. I hope._ **  
"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

 **"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

Zeus glared at Percy.

 **"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

 **"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

 **"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

 **"You meant 'you.' As in me."**

 **"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."**

"What?" Apollo's head spun.

"Even I couldn't keep up with that," Poseidon frowned. Percy and Grover exchanged a smirk.

 **"Boys!" my mom said.**

 **She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

Athena frowned. _What could that be?_

"What could that be?" Poseidon asked. Athena felt her cheeks flush. Aphrodite grinned like madman. Maybe this will be the century when Poseidon and Athena finally get together. She would have to give them a little push. She began to plot something.

 **"What was that?" I asked.**

"That's what we want to know," Apollo said. **  
"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

 **I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

"Can't blame you," Leo sighed.

 **Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"Two hours later," Thalia sighed, "He gets it," Percy stuck his tongue out at her.

 **Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.**

"What?" Poseidon shrieked. Aphrodite screamed, "Noooo! If he dies, half of my plans go out the window!"

"What plans!?" Athena screamed.

"Ooh! Bird brain better watch out!" Apollo cackled. Athena sent a swarm of owls after him. He screamed and jumped onto Thalia's lap, who started calling him a bunch of offensive curse words, her face the color of an apple.

"Get off my hunter," Artemis screamed and picked him up the ear.

"Owwie!" He screamed, "Why are you so mean to me?" he shoved her away and moments later, they were wrestling each other on the ground. Artemis was winning. The owls circled around them. Zeus threw a thunder bolt at them and they got singed. Hera screamed at the two. Yet they continued rolling around on the floor, slapping each other.

"Can you not?" Athena screamed, "This is so immature!"

"Shut up!" Poseidon yelled, "It's getting good!" He stuffed a mouthful of popcorn in his mouth. She marched straight up to him and hit him on top of the head. He glared fiercely at her.

"Hey!" he yelled, "Stop it!" Soon they too were fighting. Then, Poseidon fell, pulling Athena down with him. She landed on his chest, their faces inches away. They froze. Hermes laughed and turned his camera towards them. Hades started to laugh like a maniac and danced around them singing, "Athena and Poseidon sitting in a tree!" Ares had passed out from the excitement.

"Stop it!" Annabeth screamed. They all froze, turning to face her, "Are you guys babies?! Sit down and let Thalia read like civilized adults! You should be ashamed of yourself!" They all obliged, except for Athena who was outraged.

"Don't speak to your mother that way! First you start dating the sea spawn and now you tell us what to do!"

Saying Annabeth was pissed was an understatement. She lept up.

"I can date Percy and I will tell you guys what to do!" To prove it, she grabbed Per cy's face and slammed her lips against his. Aphrodite fainted alongside Ares. Athena froze. She then sat down on her throne, her eye twitching. Poseidon didn't look much better.

"Read Thalia," Annabeth said flatly, her face burning and her lips tingling. She sat down next to Percy and he put his arm around her, smirking at her. Thalia rubbed her temples and stared at the book.

 **I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."  
"Percy!" my mom shouted.  
"I'm okay..." **

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

 **Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

 **He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

Grover smiled softly, though hi ears still rung from the gods quarrel.

 **Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

Some stifled giggles echoed around the throne room.

"You know what?" Nico said, "We are not going to read this chapter in silence. Let's all just apologize and forget that that happened. Deal?"

"Deal." Everyone sighed, "Sorry," They all sighed again.

"Ok," Nico grinned, "Now forget it ever happened." They obliged.

 **"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

 **I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head.**

Poseidon wished he had a blanket to bury his face in.

 **His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"He does have horns," Thalia sighed, "You never accept these things."

Percy rolled his eyes at his cousins.

 **I swallowed hard. "Who is-"  
"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car." **

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

"Not good," Leo grimaced.

 **"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?" "What?"**

 **Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

Thalia shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

 **"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

 **"Mom, you're coming too."**

 **Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

Poseidon sniffed softly.

 **"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

 **"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

Some people snickered despite the tense atmosphere.

 **The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns ...**

 **"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

"She can't," Dionysus said. Everyone glared at him.

 **"But..."**

 **"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

 **I got mad, then-mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

 **I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

 **"I told you-"  
"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover." **

"Aw," Aphrodite had woken up and was now sitting up, giggling. Ares was still out cold.

 **I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

Clarisse snorted, "Weak," Poseidon glared at her.

 **Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist- high grass.**

Aphrodite's nose wrinkled up.

 **Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under-wear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-**

Some people snickered.

 **which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary.**

The snickers stopped.

 **Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

 **His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and- white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

Poseidon whipped around towards Hades, "Why did you send the Minotaur after my son?"

Hades shrugged, "This is the future, remember?"

Poseidon growled but didn't do anything threatening.

 **I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"Yes he can," Dionysus said. More glares were thrown his way.

 **I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"  
"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you." "But he's the Min-"**

"Names have power," Athena grumbled, still shaken. **  
"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

Athena raised an eyebrow. **  
The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least.**

Apollo gulped. **  
I glanced behind me again.**

 **The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

 **"Food?" Grover moaned.**

"Really, Grover? Do you ever stop thinking about food?" Thalia

In response, his stomach rumbled. She rolled her eyes. **  
"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

 **"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

"Obviously," Athena murmured.

 **As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

 **Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.**

"Oops," Nico smirked.

 **Oops.**

"Aaaaaaah!" Nico screamed, "I've caught it to!" Percy hissed at Nico and gave him a murderous look and all the gods and goddesses exchanged looks. They all agreed on something. _Don't mess with Percy._ Poseidon grinned smugly.

 **"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

 **"How do you know all this?"**

 **"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

 **"Keeping me near you? But-"**

 **Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill. He'd smelled us.**

 **The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

Clarisse snorted. Grover bleated.

 **The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

A few disgusting thoughts ran through Apollo's head. He was relieved Thalia couldn't read his mind. Then he noticed her staring at him. His face went red and he dropped his gaze to his lap. He would talk to her later. After dinner. He would order her to stop making his heart pound and to stop making these dirty thoughts run through his head. Yeah, that'll work. It's foolproof. Thalia was still staring at him. Ugh.

 **My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy!**

Ares looked mildly impressed.

 **Separate! Remember what I said."**

 **I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

Aphrodite gagged.

 **He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

 **The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

"Good," Poseidon murmured.

 **The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

Everyone's breath hitched.

 **We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

 **The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

 **"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

 **But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

"No!" Poseidon cried. Percy cringed.

 **"Mom!"  
She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!" **

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

Dead silence.

 **"No!"**

 **Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

 **The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

Poseidon gritted his teeth.

 **I couldn't allow that.**

 **I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

 **"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!" "Raaaarrrrr!"**

"Those are bad insults," Hermes said feebly.

 **The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

 **I had an idea-**

Thalia groaned.

 **a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

 **But it didn't happen like that.**

 **The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

 **Time slowed down.**

 **My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"How?" Nico asked.

 **How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

Aphrodite ran her tongue over her sparkling white teeth, shuddering.

 **The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

 **The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

 **Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

Aphrodite flinched.

 **"Food!" Grover moaned.**

 **The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap!**

Hermes raised his eyebrows. Apollo saw a great opportunity to speak but was too busy staring at his lap, blushing.

 **The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

Poseidon started to hyperventilate and breath through a paper bag.Percy gulped.

 **The monster charged.**

 **Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

 **The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate-not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

 **The monster was gone.**

This was the point where the gods and their children should begin to cheer, but they just felt sad. Sally was an astounding mortal and didn't deserve to die the way she had. Percy sighed.

"I can't tell you much," he began, "But Mom will be fine," he ended. The gods perked up a bit. Poseidon put his paper bag away.

 **The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm-house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover-I wasn't going to let him go.**

"Aw," Aphrodite sniffed.

 **The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl,**

"Eeeeeeeek! A love triangle!" (guess who said that) hint: Loud.

 **her blond hair curled like a princess's. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

 **"Silence, Annabeth," the man said.**

Everyone had to clamp their hands over their ears as Aphrodite screamed her head off. How she went on for 10 minutes, nobody knew.

 **"He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"And that's it," Thalia said, "We can eat now right?" Zeus sighed.

"Of course,"

"Yeah!" Percy grinned and his stomach rumbled, "Let's go now!"

Poseidon laughed softly and led all of them to their off the chain kitchen.

 **That is a wrap! (consider this an apology for the last late update) Two chapters in two days! Please review and I'll have the next chapter up soon!**

 **~4,416 words**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 5**

 **Basically, in the few chapters where the characters are not reading a chapter of the PJO books, I'll have it be from a different person's perspective.**

 **Thalia's POV**

Their kitchen was awe-inspiring. Stain-less steel, dozens of appliances, plain awesomeness, huge, longest table ever, it smelled like a mixture of different scents, fresh air, salt water, sunscreen, death, blood, cereal, and a million other things that should not go to together, but somehow smelled amazing. Poseidon gestured at the table and we headed towards it.

"Mm," Percy moaned, "I'm starving."

I rolled my eyes. Men. Just as I was sitting down, Apollo zoomed over towards me and sat down in the seat next to me. I looked around, but all the other seats were already taken. So, I huffed and placed my butt on the plush seat. I had no idea why he had to sit next to me. He was just a flirt and a player, so why was my heart pounding? Plus I'm a Hunter of Artemis, so boys mean nothing to me. Why was I even considering this? Then I noticed that the table had been piled up with heaps of food, everything ranging from apples to coke to pumpkin pie. I immediately piled pizza, a yellow fruit I didn't recognize, and blue cookies (Percy wasn't the only one who liked blue food) onto my plate. I grabbed a can of coke as well and dug in. Percy was on his fifth slice of pizza and had a million blue cookies and was still chugging blue Kool-Aid down. Poseidon was so proud. Annabeth, on the other hand, was eating Chinese food (I'll never figure that girl out) and drinking water. Piper and Hazel both had an extravagant fruit dish. Jason had spaghetti. Frank scarfed down some mashed potatoes. Leo and Nico shared a course of dishes from McDonalds. Clarisse ripped the leg off of a chicken. Will slurped up some weird soup that hurt my eyes to look at. Grover ate tin cans. He's weird like that. Rachael poked at some steak. The gods all had some ambrosia and nectar mixed in with their food somewhere. Let me just say, yum! It was so good that I almost missed Apollo eyeing me. Almost. I chatted with Clarisse, who sat to my right and tried to ignore Apollo's stare. I also tried not to punch Clarisse in the face every time she snickered. It was hard. Eventually, when we all finished, the gods led us to our bedroom. Pffffft. Bedroom. Try Palace! The walls were a bright blue with scenes from ancient times depicted on them. Dark-wood floor. Against one wall were 13 awesome beds. They were personalized for each of us. Mine was thundering. Percy's was covered in images of the rolling sea. Jason's was hovering an inch of the ground. Hazel's glowed faintly. Each bed represented the owner. Percy and I dashed toward our beds and tested them to see if they were good enough to jump on. They were. Soon, all of us demigods (and satyr and mortal) were jumping on our beds while our parents rolled their eyes. Athena looked worried about the fact that Percy and Annabeth's beds were side by side. Poseidon, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice. Anyway, on the other side of the room, there were a bunch of random weapons and some dummies to practice on which we ignored for the moment. Two gigantic closets stood in the corner. A door led to a beautiful bathroom with a shower most likely worth millions.

"Well, good night," Zeus shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"Night!" We chorused and plopped down on our beds. They stood there for a moment before filing out if the room. I had just turned around to go grab some pajamas from the closets when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. Oh, shit.

"What do you want Apollo?" I glared at him. He wavered for a moment before shaking his head.

"We need to talk." He said. Piper giggled. My heart skipped a beat as I followed him outside into the marble corridor, held up by intricate pillars. I crossed my arms over my chest and shot an evil glare at him.

"Well?" I snapped.

"Uh," he ran a hand through his soft curls that fell over his forehead, "Listen, I, like you,"

My heart stopped. I think I said something intelligent, along the lines of, "Uh."

And I know that you're a Hunter and that Artemis will kill me if she finds out this happened. But, I just want you to give me a chance," He swallowed hard. I think I almost fainted. He likes me? Me! Oh my gods! Ok, um, so, why is my heart pounding? You know what! You know what! YOU KNOW WHAT! I-I'll give him a chance.

"Err, fine. One chance!" I licked my lips nervously.

I swear his smile was blinding. Literally! I had to look away.

"Thanks! You won't regret this!" He beamed.

"I hope not," I murmured. But when he kissed my cheek, I nearly crumbled. Unfortunately, before I had time to kill him, he was gone in a blinding flash. With shaking legs, I staggered back to my bed. It took me a moment to notice that every one was quiet and staring at me. Which was amazing considering most of them had ADHD.

"What?" I could already feel the heat rising to my cheeks. The right one was one fire.

"So!" Piper squealed. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"I bet nothing happened, Piper. Right, Thalia?"

"Um, not exactly."

Everyone sat up straight. Piper squealed louder.

"You didn't do something stupid right?" Annabeth actually looked concerned.

I huffed, " **I** didn't do much,"

When Annabeth raised a brow, I shook my head.

"I don't want to-"

"I get it," Annabeth said, "You can tell us when you're ready."

I nodded. Piper pouted but didn't press me any further.

Percy smirked, "Can't wait to find out what happened," I stuck my tongue out at him and rushed into the bathroom with a pair of pajamas, a tank top and shorts. Minutes later, I was fast asleep, dreaming of a certain god. Oh shit.

 **Poseidon's POV**

The first thing I heard was screaming. It came from the demigod's room. (Which made no sense since we had soundproofed the walls) Next I saw a flash and knew one of the others were running towards the room. I soon followed, along with everyone else. What? Nothings wrong. Then,

"Get off of Annabeth, Percy Jackson!"

Ugh, that Birdbrain. Annabeth sat on her bed, her knees pulled to her chest, sobbing. Percy had his arms around her and whispered softly to her, I don't know why that didn't bother me nearly as much as it should. They just looked right together.

Thalia glared at her, "Stop! You'll just make it worse. Don't you see he's comforting her!"

Athena glared at her, "I'll comfort her then!"

Thalia rolled her eyes, "You can't. Only Percy can. Only he really u-understands-" she broke off, staring at her lap with raw pain in her electric blue eyes. Leo shifted uncomfortably, and that bright light that I had seen in his eyes hours ago was gone. He looked so sad and lifeless. It broke my heart.

"What nightmare could be this bad?" I regretted asking.

Thalia gave me a grade ten evil glare.

"Sorry, but Rhea said we can't tell you." She bared her teeth and made a fist that she punched into the wall.

"I just want Annabeth to be okay." She whispered softly.

"I'm okay," Annabeth's voice was raspy and her eyes were red. I felt bad for her. Percy still held her. I caught a few words that he whispered.

"I'm alright. I'm right here Annabeth. We're both alive."

I began to wonder what happens in the future for them. Something bad had obviously happened to Percy and Annabeth. Part of me was dying to know what. Part of me was afraid to find out.

"Well then, we'll go prepare breakfast and you can join us after you change, okay?"

Percy threw me a grateful look.

"Sounds good." He grinned, though he still looked a little hollow. It was shocking how he had gone from looking so healthy to looking so scared and sickly. It terrified me. But the gods and I left and prepared the breakfast. I didn't make any notice of Athena glaring at me until she huffed.

"What is it?" I sighed in exasperation.

"Don't you care that they were in the same bed?" she narrowed her eyes. The others were watching us carefully.

I rolled my eyes, "Shouldn't you care that your daughter was an emotional wreck?"

Her jaw dropped. Before she could come back with a furious retort, our children walked in. Annabeth looked much better. She wore some shorts and a camp T-shirt. Piper, on the other hand wore an Aztec print romper. Hazel wore a black skirt and a panda hoodie. The boys all wore jeans and randomly colored shirts. Leo wore a tool belt around his waist. When Percy saw the food on the table, his jaw dropped.

"Blue pancakes!" He was overjoyed. I grinned. Soon, the demigods had stuffed themselves with blue pancakes.

"Time to read another chapter,' Hestia smiled softly.

We headed towards the throne room, and as if by magic, which it was, the book reappeared in Thalia's lap.

She frowned, "I'm not reading again. Who wants to read?"

"I'll read," Apollo volunteered. She got up to hand him the book and their fingers brushed. I saw her cheeks warm up, but I made no note of it. Artemis made a note of it, though. Before she could say anything, Apollo speedily opened the book and read the title of the chapter, " **I Play Pinochle with a Horse** ," he read.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 6**

 **Early update! Your welcome!**

 **I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals.**

"What?" Artemis snorted. Thalia breathed a sigh of relief.

 **Most of them wanted to kill me.**

Poseidon frowned.

 **The rest wanted food.**

 **Artemis rolled her eyes.**

"Sound like men." she smirked. Thalia shifted uncomfortably.

 **I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

Everyone laughed.

 **When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

Nico snorted.

 **I managed to croak, "What?" She looked around, as if afraid someone would over-hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

"Desperate." Clarisse muttered. She quickly shut up at the glare Annabeth was giving her.

 **"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."**

 **Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

Artemis laughed, "The best way to shut men up,"

 **The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

"Are you sad about that?" Jason whispered mockingly to Percy. Percy ignored him.

 **A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them-on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**

Hera smiled fondly, "Argus."

 **When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to.**

Annabeth frowned slightly.

 **I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest.**

Aphrodite shuddered.

 **My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

 **On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

"Yum." Apollo licked his lips. Thalia's head was in her hands so that nobody could see her blush.

 **My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it. "Careful," a familiar voice said. Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

"I hadn't." Grover sighed.

 **Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.**

Grover glared at Percy.

 **So maybe I'd had a nightmare.**

Percy sighed.

 **Maybe my mom was okay.**

Percy shook his head.

 **We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And ...**

 **"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

 **Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

 **Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

Obviously, Athena thought. She glanced at Poseidon to find him staring back at her. She quickly looked away. Aphrodite was positively delighted with the romance swirling around her.

 **"The Minotaur," I said.**

 **"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**

"It isn't," Athena agreed. Poseidon frowned.

 **"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull." Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

 **"My mom. Is she really ..."**

 **He looked down.**

Suddenly the atmosphere went sad.

 **I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky.**

Percy smiled softly.

 **The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

Thalia was flattered, "Aw, thanks, Percy!" Percy rolled his eyes.

"What?" Apollo frowned.

"Oh, um, nothing. Just read."

He looked suspicious, as did the others, but he continued to read.

 **My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

Nico agreed.

 **"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

Thalia whacked Grover in the head, "Not true!" He nodded hastily, eyes wide.

 **He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

 **"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

Hades sniffed, "Finally, no one says, 'Oh, my Hades!" Nico nodded.

 **Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

"Zeus agrees," Hades nodded to himself as everyone but his son rolled their eyes.

 **As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.**

 **Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

Grover bleated indignantly, "Don't ever do that!" Percy laughed, "Don't worry! I won't. Just watch out for the Hermes cabin. They might," Hermes grinned as if that was the most amazing thing he had ever heard.

 **But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

 **I was alone. An orphan.**

"Not true," Dionysus said thoughtfully. Then he burped.

 **I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**

"No." Everyone stated.

 **No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army.**

Thalia snorted, "That would never work."

 **I'd do something.**

 **Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor goat, satyr, whatever-looked as if he expected to be hit.**

 **I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

 **"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."**

 **"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

 **"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

 **"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

"Everything with him is related to the sea." Athena sighed.

 **"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

 **I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies-my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting.**

"So good," Thalia moaned softly. Apollo's eyes darkened slightly.

 **Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

Poseidon smiled faintly.

 **Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass.**

Annabeth snorted.

 **I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

 **"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

 **I nodded.**

 **"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

 **"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

"No you should not have," Annabeth stated.

 **His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered." "Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home-made."**

 **He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

 **"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"That's awesome," Apollo grinned.

 **"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff" "What do you mean?"**

 **He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table.**

"It kind of is dynamite." Athena remarked.

 **"Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

 **The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

 **My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

"Aw," Aphrodite squealed softly.

 **As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

 **We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture**

"Which it is," Annabeth sighed.

 **-an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena-except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

"You aren't," Will smiled. Nico stared. Aphrodite squealed mentally.

 **Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl**

"Really?" Annabeth sighed.

Percy shrugged, "I didn't know you name." She rolled her eyes.

 **who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

 **The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs.**

"EXCUSE ME!" Dionysus bellowed. But he backed down at Poseidon's glare.

 **That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger- pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step-father.**

"Obviously," Dionysus grumbled.

 **"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron... ."**

 **He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

 **First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

 **"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

Percy grinned.

 **The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.**

Thalia laughed, "Only Chiron would do that."

 **"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

Nico rolled his eyes.

 **He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

 **"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice.**

Everyone burst out laughing.

 **If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr. "Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

Annabeth raised an eyebrow towards her boyfriend.

 **She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

Hermes glared pointedly at the other gods.

 **Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

 **She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking.**

Annabeth snorted.

 **With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.**

Annabeth glared at Percy. He shifted on the couch.

 **They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

Annabeth grinned. Percy grinned. Athena frowned.

 **She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that.**

Annabeth snorted, "Like I would say that,"

Percy blushed.

 **Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

Cue laughter.

 **Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

Aphrodite smirked at Percy.

 **"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?" "Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron." "Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

 **Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

 **"Oh. Right. Sorry."**

"He probably didn't know what he did wrong," Clarisse interjected. Percy threw her a glare.

 **"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

 **"House call?"**

 **"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special,**

"You just inflated his ego," Annabeth sighed. Percy laughed and pullled her to his chest.

 **so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."**

 **I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

 **"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

"See," Annabeth stated.

 **Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

Thalia sniffed sadly. That was a test she had failed. Apollo shot her a concerned look and she buried her head in her knees, trying not to cry. Why did she have to rely on him? She felt some arms around her and thought it was Percy, but when Artemis yelled at Apollo to get away from her, she looked up in shock. Oh. She was about to punch him in the chest and tell him to get away from her when she faltered. He did ask her to give him a chance and she wasn't being really fair. He **was** trying to make her feel better after all. She pulled her fist back and pressed it against her chest. Judging from the look on his face, he had excepted her to punch him. Instead, she smiled softly at him, blinking back a few tears. Artemis was so shocked that she her eyes rolled up in her head and she slid in her throne. Aphrodite squealed. Really loud too. Piper smothered a giggle with her hand.

"Thanks." Thalia whispered softly to him. Zeus looked ready to pull an Artemis, or better yet, banish Apollo from Olympus (AN: see what I did there?) for all of eternity. "Your welcome," he whispered in return and then raised his tone, "Can't leave my cousin alone, can I?" he grinned and everyone felt more relaxed. And less suspicious.

 **"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?" "Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

Dionysus glared at Percy.

 **"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously. "I'm afraid not," I said. "I'm afraid not, sir," he said. "Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

"The feeling is mutual, Perry Johnson," Dionysus sighed.

 **"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules."**

Annabeth snorted.

 **"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said. "Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?" Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."  
The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile. **

"That's sad," Hestia frowned. Grover agreed.

 **Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer. "Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**

"Eh," Percy shrugged.

 **"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her." "Typical," Mr. D said.**

Everyone glared at him.

 **"That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?" "What?" I asked. He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did. "I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient." "Orientation film?" I asked.**

"That's why you were so clueless," Annabeth face-palmed. Percy made a face.

 **"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"-he pointed to the horn in the shoe box-"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you call the Greek gods-are very much alive."**

 **I stared at the others around the table. I waited for somebody to yell, Not!** Nico snorted.  
 **But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.  
** Everyone laughed. **  
"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"  
** Percy burst out laughing. **  
"Eh? Oh, all right."  
Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**  
Some people snorted. **  
"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."**  
"No."  
 **"Well, now," Chiron said. "God-capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical." "Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-" "Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**  
"Smaller?" Zeus glared at the book  
 **"Smaller?"  
** Nobody laughed upon seeing the expression on the king of the god's face.  
 **"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class." "Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them." And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloud-less day. "Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**  
"I agree with myself," Dionysus nodded contentedly.  
 **"But they're stories," I said. "They're-myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."  
** "Science." Annabeth rolled her eyes.  
 **"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody-**  
"I'm a god. I would know," Dionysus sighed  
 **"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**  
Poseidon called Dionysus a few offensive words under his breath. Luckily, Dionysus didn't hear.  
 **I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**  
"Obviously," Piper said.

 **"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**  
"Yeah," Hermes answered, "I do it every day." Hera scoffed.  
 **I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate. "You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**  
"I don't like that part," Hermes pouted.  
 **"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some-day people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**  
"Harsh," Hades winced. Percy gritted his teeth.  
 **My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him.  
** "Good," Apollo nodded.  
 **I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods." "Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**  
"They can try," Poseidon threatened.  
 **Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock." "A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card.  
** Poseidon doused Dionysus in water, leaving him sputtering.  
 **"Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'" He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**  
Dionysus licked his lips hungrily.  
 **My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.  
"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**  
"What restrictions?" Dionysus panicked. He immediately made a goblet appear and chugged it down. He failed to notice that Leo was trying not to laugh. **  
Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**  
"Feigned?" Zeus growled. **  
"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!" More thunder. Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game. Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**  
"Off limits?" Dionysus gulped.  
 **"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**  
Some people snorted.  
 **"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**  
Zeus glared at Mr. D, who shuddered.  
 **Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.  
** "True," Annabeth nodded. He usually does.  
 **"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..." "Di immortales, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course." I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master. "You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."  
** "No duh!" Dionysus sighed. **  
Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?" "Y-yes, Mr. D."  
"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"  
**"Ew!" Aphrodite shrieked. **  
"You're a god.""Yes, child." "A god. You."  
** "Burn!" Hermes and Apollo yelled at the same time.  
 **He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**  
"If he does," Poseidon began, "I will kill him,"  
Dionysus gulped.  
 **"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.  
** "No."  
 **"No. No, sir." The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**  
"I doubt it," Nico sighed.  
 **"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**  
"Thought so," Nico smiled smugly.  
 **I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too. "I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**  
Grover gulped.  
 **Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir." Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners." He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miser-ably. "Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**  
"I hope," Aphrodite frowned.

 **Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job.**  
"Obviously,"  
 **He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus." "Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?" "Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**  
"This is first grade knowledge," Athena sighed. Annabeth nodded wholeheartedly. **"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?" "Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West." "The what?" "Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years.**  
Athena smiled proudly.  
 **The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps-Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods."**  
Zeus made a face like he was taking a poop.  
"What are you doing, dad?" Jason sighed.  
"Trying no tot turn into Jupiter," he replied.  
"Oh."  
 **"And then they died."  
** "Did not," Athena groaned.  
 **"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England.**  
Apollo nodded fondly.  
 **All you need to do is look at the architecture.  
** Athena grinned. **  
People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus.  
** Zeus grinned smugly.  
 **Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not-and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**  
"I knew that," Percy muttered. Annabeth snorted.  
 **It was all too much; especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.  
** Apollo snorted.  
 **"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?" Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**  
"Not true," Athena said.  
 **"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it?  
** Everyone nodded. **  
But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."  
** "Me too," Leo drooled.  
 **And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear,  
** Piper snorted. Hazel giggled. **  
but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him.**  
"Obviously," Athena sighed. Percy glared at her.  
 **A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.** **I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion.  
** "Cool," Apollo grinned. Thalia leaned further into his chest. **  
But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk. "What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep.  
** "Heh," Nico grinned. **  
Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."  
** "And done," Apollo snapped the book shut. Aphrodite had just volunteered to read the next chapter, when Artemis sat up. She caught sight of Thalia and Apollo and her face went red.  
"APOLLO! HOW DARE YOU TOUCH MY HUNTER!" She screamed. She was about to kill Apollo when Thalia inched out of Apollo's embrace and stood up.  
"He was just comforting me," she whispered.  
"Why did you need comforting!" she screeched.  
"Because," her voice broke, "because I failed the test," and then she ran from the room. Apollo glared at his sister.

"Geez, sis. Just make it worse, won't you," And then he followed her, his feet slapping against the stone.

 **Cliff hanger! Sort of. Next chapter is gonna be crazy! Ooh! Please review and the chapter will be up quicker! Bribery...**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 7**

 **Sorry that this is late but its pretty long so enjoy!**

 **Thalia's POV**

I am stupid. What was I thinking? I really am just a failure. After running for some time, I slid down a random wall and sobbed. Minutes later, I sensed his presence, the warmth that radiated from him. But, I just kept crying as the sun god put his arms around me.

"Stop crying," his voice sent chills down my back.

I looked up at him as he wiped my tears away with his thumb.

"Want to tell me what happened?" he asked.

"When Grover brought me to Camp, I was with Annabeth and my, um, f-friend Luke. Hades had sent the furies and a dozen other monsters after us. We were so close to the border, but the monsters had caught up with us. So, I-I I sacrificed myself to save them," His eyes widened.

"As I lay there dying, dad took pity on me and turned me into the pine tree that protects the border of camp. Until, a few years ago when Percy and Annabeth retrieved, er, something that was so powerful that it released my body from the tree. And here I am. A failure," I sniffed. He was silent for a moment.

"That was brave of you," he smiled at me, "You're not a failure. You're- You're perfect," he whispered.

I'm not sure who started it, but moments later, our lips were pressed together. Even through both of our shirts, he was hot. My hand tangled in his curls and he wrapped his arm around my back, pulling me closer. I really shouldn't be doing this. So, being the idiot that I was, I pulled back, staring into his cobalt eyes.

"Why are you doing this?"

He wasn't expecting that.

"What do you mean?" his brow knit together.

"Do you even care about me? Or am I just another woman that you'll leave in a day? I'm just getting my hopes up!"

He laughed softly, "I'm doing this because I like you. A lot,"

My heart left me and ran down the hall, laughing happily. Me, Myself, Thalia, and I just sat there, eyes wide. He grinned and pulled me close, so that I had to look up at him.

"Just getting your hopes up, Huh?"

Shit.

"Uh. I um! I mean that I...Shut up." I flushed. He grinned and kissed me softly, sending tingles down my spine.

"Let's go back," he got up and held his hand out to me.

I was about to take his hand when a horrible thought struck me.

"Aren't you my half-brother?" I gasped.

He laughed at me, "Yeah. I am."

He stuck his hand out again and this time, I took it and we headed back. Turns out, they hadn't read on without us. They just sat there talking and Artemis sat there with her knees pulled to her chest, eye twitching. The chatter ended immediately and everyone was staring at us. I quickly let go of Apollo's hand but most people were smirking, and I was probably as red as Apollo. I just ran over to my friends (who were also smirking) and plopped down between Percy and Nico.

Nico leaned over and whispered to me, "So...did you get some?"

I punched him in the gut.

"Ow! It was a joke!" he clutched his stomach, moaning.

"Just shut up!" I hissed at him, before burying my head in my hands.

Aphrodite grinned like some sort of demon and opened the book before Artemis (who looked both guilty and suspicious) could say anything.

 **Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though I was** **careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.**  
Nico snorted, "Really, Percy? That's nasty."

Percy chuckled, "Yeah. It kind of is."  
 **We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's him."**  
Annabeth smirked. Aphrodite smiled.  
 **Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.**  
"That would have been cool," Grover mused.

Percy sighed.  
 **I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized-four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort.**  
All the demigods sighed happily.  
 **I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**  
Apollo grinned to himself. _The oracle._ Everyone else shuddered. _  
_ **"What's up there?" I asked Chiron. He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic." "Somebody lives there?" "No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."**  
Annabeth shrugged, "Semi-true." Percy rolled his eyes and ruffled her hair, earning a glare.  
 **I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain. "Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see." We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.  
** The demigods laughed.  
"I don't get it," Demeter frowned.

"Nico chuckled, "It's just that a certain son of yours," he nodded at Hermes, "loves to stare at your daughter, Demeter, while she helps her siblings pick the strawberries." Percy smirked, "You know there dating now, right?"  
Annabeth smirked too, "The way we found out was hilarious."  
Clarisse nodded, " No better way to find out your friends are dating then to find them making out behind the big house." Everyone burst out laughing while all the virgin goddesses blushed slightly.  
 **Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."**  
"Your welcome," Dionysus grinned smugly.

Aphrodite scoffed," Wow. Really?"  
 **He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.**  
Again, Dionysus looked extremely panicked, "Restricted? What happens to me?" He was ignored.

 **I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.  
** Annabeth snorted softly, but Grover heard it. He stuck his tongue out at her. Hermes raised a brow.

 **I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.  
** Grover shuddered, "I was," Dionysus smirked happily. Aphrodite glared at him, but he took no notice.  
 **"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."  
** Grover grinned fondly. Percy fist bumped him. Athena and her daughter rolled their eyes. Percy pouted.  
 **Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable.  
** Grover pouted along with Percy. Thalia smiled slightly, though her face was still flushed.

 **To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill." "But he did that!" "I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide.**  
Zeus frowned, "Are they that bad?"

"Yes," Grover huffed.  
 **I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother.  
** Poseidon bit his lip. Athena grimaced.  
 **And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part." I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault.  
** "It kind of was," Grover sighed. Thalia stood up, sauntered over to Grover and promptly slapped him.  
"Ow!" He gasped, "Why do you keep hurting me?"  
She scoffed, "Because it wasn't your fault, so shut up!"  
"Thanks," Grover smiled gratefully, still rubbing his red cheek.

 **I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**  
Percy shifted uncomfortably.  
 **"He'll get a second chance, won't he?" Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that was Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago.  
** Annabeth sighed sadly. Athena noticed, and her eyes narrowed. **  
Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age... ."  
** Grover gasped, "Not fair! I'm a big satyr!"

Everyone laughed at him.  
 **"How old is he?" "Oh, twenty-eight."**  
Piper gasped, "What?' Nico laughed, "Satyr's are just weird like that." Piper nodded as if that made perfect sense. Grover looked pissed. **  
"What! And he's in sixth grade?" "Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."  
** "Cruel," Grover stated.  
 **"That's horrible."  
** Grover nodded.  
 **"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career... ."**  
"Not happening!" Grover grinned.  
Athena looked suspicious.  
 **"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?" Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**  
"Changing the subject, huh?' Hermes looked over at Apollo, probably waiting for him to chime in, but Apollo was busy staring at the ceiling, face pink. He ran his tongue over his lips every once in a while.  
 **But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word death. The beginnings of an idea-a tiny, hopeful fire-started forming in my mind.**  
"Uh oh," Poseidon grimaced.

Hades chuckled darkly, causing everyone but his son to cringe.  
 **"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..." "Yes, child?"  
"Does that mean the Underworld is real, to?" **  
Poseidon gawked at Percy, who looked uncomfortable.  
 **Chiron's expression darkened.  
** As everyone else's did now.  
 **"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."  
** "Please do,'' Hestia murmured. Everyone nodded.  
 **"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?" "Come, Percy. Let's see the woods."**  
Nico frowned, "I don't like the woods much,"

"Why?" Will asked.

"Because of the monster roaming, waiting for a demigod to come near. Then they pounce and you die." He gritted his teeth.

Will put an arm around him and gave him a reassuring squeeze. Everyone else just looked confused.

 **As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.  
** Annabeth scoffed, "Really?" she whispered in her boyfriend's ear.

He grinned, "Shut up, Wise Girl." he whispered down her ear, making her shiver as his breath tickled her neck.

 **Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed." "Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"  
"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?" "My own-?"  
**"Why would he?" Leo furrowed his brow.

Thalia shrugged, "Chiron is odd like that," Leo thought that made sense, after all, he had met the centaur.

 **"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do.**

"Like a shoe size?" Jason asked.

"No silly," Piper giggled, "Its not a sword size."

 **I'll visit the armory later." I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.  
** "Yeah, those are epic," Clarisse grinned.

 **"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.  
"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall." Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls. "What do you do when it rains?" I asked.  
**"Idiot," Dionysus muttered. Thankfully, no one heard.

 **Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**  
"Good," Athena remarked, "Or else he would think you were a complete idiot." Both the sea god and his son glared at her.

 **Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**

The Olympians grinned proudly.

 **Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory.**

Leo and Hephaestus grinned fondly.

 **Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass.**

Demeter sat up straighter.

 **Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.**

Apollo fist-pumped, "That's my awesome cabin!" Everyone rolled their eyes while Thalia stifled a giggle. No one noticed her but Apollo, who gulped and stared down at his lap, eyes dark, face flushed.

Artemis stared, "What's wrong, Apollo?"

He froze, "Um, nothing Sis! Nothing at all! Why do you care? I'm obviously not thinking dirty thoughts so stop badgering me!"

Artemis's jaw had dropped slightly, "First: I'm not badgering you. Second: No one said you were thinking dirty thoughts. Freak."

He nodded hastily and stared at his intertwined fingers. Hermes smirked. He was loving this. So was Aphrodite. Thalia was bright red and trying not to A, burst out crying because she was defying Lady Artemis's rules or B, giggle until she died because Apollo was thinking about her or C, blush furiously because she had no idea how dirty these thoughts were or D, wonder how Artemis didn't see what was going on.

 **They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).**  
Hermes grinned, Me too. We should play together." Percy nodded and grinned good-naturedly.

 **In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined fire pit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.  
** Hestia smiled warmly, "I do love going to Camp-Half-Blood."

 **The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front.**

Hera smirked and threw her hair over her shoulder. Annabeth rolled her eyes (not very discreetly either)

 **Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**

The couple grinned smugly.  
 **"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**

 **"Correct," Chiron said.  
** "Obviously," Thalia and Jason muttered.  
"What was that?" Zeus asked.  
"Nothing!" the brother and sister said speedily. **  
"Their cabins look empty." "Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two." Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.** "I am no mascot," Hermes sniffed.  
 **Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?  
** "Cause some goddesses are virgins and don't understand passion." Aphrodite sniffed disdainfully. Athena, Artemis, and Hestia rolled their eyes. **  
I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.  
** Poseidon grinned. **  
It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"  
** "Why not?" Poseidon asked.  
Percy shrugged, "Probably because I was still unclaimed and Chiron believed that if I peered in your cabin you might like kill me because I was being disrespectful."  
Poseidon scoffed, "Do you really think I would that?"  
Leo sighed, "Maybe not you but some of the others..." he peered around the room cautiously.  
Zeus glared at the demigods, "HOW DARE YOU MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT US!?"  
Annabeth interjected quickly, "Think of it this way: You never talk to us. You usually leave us be in Cabin of 11 until we die. Those demigods wait there in vain waiting to be claimed, but on the inside, deep down, they know they never will be. So you can't blame us for thinking like that. Some of us have only met our parents once or twice. Some of us never will because you can't be bothered to say a quick hello, or how have you been these last few years? Just think about it from our perspective." Annabeth bit her lip.  
Athena looked sick, "Do you really think of us like that?"  
Annabeth didn't answer.  
"Hey," Percy broke the silence, "It's nothing, really. Just maybe, you could stop in every few years? You know?"  
That made it worse.  
"Just forget it happened," Percy muttered, "Please read, Aphrodite."  
 **Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."  
** Percy sighed and ran a hand through his messy black hair.  
 **Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers. Number five was bright red-a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me.  
** "Yeah!" Ares bellowed. Some people rolled their eyes at him. **  
Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**  
Clarisse grinned evilly. Ares looked so proud.  
 **I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed. "No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."  
"Well...there was that one time." Annabeth sighed. Clarisse snorted, "Don't bring that up," she shuddered and Annabeth smirked.**  
 **"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."  
He smiled down at me. "The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am." "But, shouldn't you be dead?"  
**Athena rolled her eyes.  
 **Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him.  
** "It probably does," Hermes said. **  
"I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."  
** "He'll always be needed," Annabeth said fondly. All the demigods nodded like bobble heads.  
 **I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.  
** "Me neither," Nico shuddered. He and Percy fist-bumped.  
"Ummmm...what's that?" Apollo asked, confused.  
Thalia looked shocked, "Fist bumps are awesome! Considering your titles, you should know what it is."  
Apollo frowned, "My titles?"  
Annabeth sighed, "Go ahead and tell the god the future, why don't you?"  
Nico didn't seem to realize it was sarcastic, "Well, in the future, you are the god of more things, including prophesizing and all that other stuff."  
Annabeth smacked him, "I was being sarcastic,"  
"Oh,"  
Apollo gasped, "I am the god of multiple things, you mean? Awesome!"  
"Yeah, and you don't even know what a fist bump is." **  
"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**  
"How could it?" Athena sighed dreamily. Poseidon cringed.  
 **"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring." "Why depressing?" Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again. "Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."  
** "Ooh!" Aphrodite perked up a bit.  
 ***** The blond girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.**  
Annabeth glared at her boyfriend, "You need to stop calling me the blond girl."  
Percy nodded and kissed her cheek, "I'm scared of what you'll do if I don't,"  
Nico snorted. Hazel giggled. Athena grimaced.  
 **When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.  
** "I was," Annabeth giggled. Percy pouted, which Annabeth found adorable on him.  
 **I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**  
Athena grinned proudly.  
 **"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?" "Yes, sir." "Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."**  
Percy frowned, "That was hard, considering Hermes's children all seemed to want to steal something from me."  
Hermes laughed softly.  
 **Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ?  
** "A caduceus," Hermes grinned. **  
A caduceus.  
** Some people laughed.  
 **Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.  
** Hermes glared pointedly at the other gods, who all found the ground interesting.  
 **Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully. "Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner." He galloped away toward the archery range.**  
Apollo grinned.Artemis did too.  
 **I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.  
** Poseidon grimaced.  
 **"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on." So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.  
** Everyone burst out laughing as Percy flushed.  
 **There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**

 **Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven. "Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.  
I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined." Everybody groaned.  
**Hermes frowned. **  
A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."**  
Thalia gulped as Percy made a noise along the line of a growl.  
Apollo raised a brow, "What's wrong?"  
Percy gritted his teeth, "Nothing." And tightened his grip on Annabeth.  
 **The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.  
** Annabeth closed her eyes and buried her head in Percy shoulder. Athena looked worried.  
 **"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing.**  
Percy frowned. Aphrodite gasped, "A love triangle! This is going to create so much drama!"  
Percy snorted, "Good luck with that." He bared his teeth. Aphrodite frowned.  
 **She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now." "For now?" I asked. "You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers." I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down,  
** "Please do," Hermes grinned.  
 **but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.  
** "Oh," he sighed.  
 **I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.  
** Clarisse grinned, "Yeah, a lot of people wanted to take your things. Your lucky that time is frozen. Or else you might be 'robbed' by the Stolls."  
Percy gulped.  
 **"How long will I be here?" I asked.  
** _A while,_ Percy thought. **"  
Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined." "How long will that take?" The campers all laughed.  
**Some gods frowned.

 **"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court." "I've already seen it." "Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.  
** Hermes gritted his teeth. **  
When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that." "What?" She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."  
** "The one?!" Aphrodite shrieked.  
Annabeth rolled her eyes, blushing, "Shush."  
 **"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy-" "Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"  
** "Basically everyone," Clarisse shrugged.  
 **"To get killed?"  
** Clarisse snorted, "Wow, Prissy." Ares grinned, _Prissy, Genius!_ He thought.  
 **"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?" I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..." "Yes."  
"Then there's only one."  
"Yes." "And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..." "Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."  
"Oh, thanks. That clears it up." **  
Annabeth sighed and shook her head.  
"What?" Percy shrugged, "It's true."  
 **"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re- form."**  
"Obviously," Athena muttered. Poseidon frowned at her and she looked away quickly.  
 **I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword-"**  
"Accidentally?" Ares snorted.  
"Yeah." Percy stated.  
Ares rolled his eyes, "Weirdo," he murmured.  
 **"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad." "How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?" "You talk in your sleep."**  
"You do." Annabeth responded to a very flushed Percy as everyone around them laughed.  
 **"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"  
** Hades bit his lip and ran a hand through his messy dark curls. Everyone else squirmed uncomfortably.  
 **Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.  
** "It better not," Athena glared at Hades who shrugged. **  
"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."  
** Hades nodded to himself approvingly. Demeter contemplated whether she should pelt him with cheerios.  
 **"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny,  
** Nico smirked, "Doesn't he always sound that way?"  
He was doused in water, and judging by the way he shuddered, it was freezing cold.  
He raised his sword and glared at Percy, "Rude."  
Percy started to get up but Aphrodite had other ideas.  
"Don't you dare." She growled and Percy plopped back onto the couch and Nico grumbled, sitting down, soaking wet. Everyone shifted away from him.  
 **even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."**  
Some people shifted uncomfortably.  
 **I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale.  
** As her mother did now, "Why?" she murmured to herself. **  
"You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent." She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.  
"But he didn't," Annabeth sighed.  
**Percy pouted, causing Annabeth to giggle and peck his nose.  
 **"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."  
** Poseidon bit his lip and Athena tried not to care. **  
"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."  
"He's dead. I never knew him." Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.  
**Annabeth huffed, "I had." **  
"Your father's not dead, Percy." "How can you say that? You know him?" "No, of course not." "Then how can you say-" "Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us." "You don't know anything about me."  
** "You think?" Thalia smirked. Apollo coughed, face red.  
 **"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them." "How-"  
"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."  
I tried to swallow my embarrassment.  
**Poseidon frowned. _Why would he be embarrassed?_ **  
"What does that have to do with anything?" "Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD-you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle-field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive.  
** "True," Leo nodded. **  
As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."  
** "Subtle." Hazel murmured. **  
"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?" "Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."  
** Grover licked his lips. **  
"Ambrosia and nectar." "The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead.  
** Hades and Nico looked really creepy right about now.  
 **Face it. You're a half- blood." A half-blood. I was reeling  
** "Reeling. Like with a fishing pole." Athena rolled her eyes. **  
with so many questions I didn't know where to start. Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"  
** Clarisse cringed. Percy smirked. **  
I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.  
** Ares grinned, oblivious to his daughter's expression. **  
"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?" "Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."  
** "Ooh!" Leo laughed. Piper smacked his head and he stopped laughing. **  
''Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said,**  
Leo stuffed his fist in his mouth to prevent himself from dying of laughter. **  
which I somehow under-stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."  
** "Oooh..." Aphrodite giggled, "Drama!" Annabeth and Clarisse rolled their eyes. **  
"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"  
** "Runt?" Hazel bit her lip. Percy sighed. _He really had been a runt._ **  
"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."  
** Ares grinned. Clarisse grimaced. **  
I blinked. "Like ... the war god?" Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?" "No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."  
"**OOOOOOHHHH!" Apollo laughed. Ares threw a sword at his head, which just barely missed his head, hitting the back of his throne instead. He quickly stopped laughing.  
 **Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy." "Percy." "Whatever. Come on, I'll show you." "Clarisse-" Annabeth tried to say. "Stay out of it, wise girl."  
** "That's where it came from," Piper mused, braiding her hair absentmindedly. Jason smiled.

 **Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.  
** Some chuckles echoed around the room. **  
I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.  
** "Ew." Aprodite's nose wrinkled.  
"I agree for once. Ew." Nico gagged. **  
I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron.  
** Clarisse tugged at her stringy hair, scowling. **  
She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking-as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out-that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.  
** "Seriously?!" Zeus exclaimed, but his voice was drowned out by the laughter. **  
Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.  
** "Because you weren't in any real danger." Annabeth said.  
"I disagree." Percy crossed his arms across his chest. **  
"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."  
** Poseidon glowered at Clarisse who looked ready to sink through the ground.  
 **Her friends snickered.  
Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.  
**Athena sniffed.  
 **Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.  
** "You won't." Poseidon agreed.  
 **Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.  
** Poseidon grinned like a madman. Ares gulped. **  
I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.  
** "Ha!" Poseidon cackled.  
 **I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt.  
** Ares scowled and Clarisse flushed. **  
The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.**

 **She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.  
** Ares looked ready to pound someone's face into the ground. Clarisse looked ready to faint.  
 **As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started. The entire bathroom was flooded.  
** "Chiron didn't like that." Will muttered. Nico snorted and Will beamed. **  
Annabeth hadn't been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.  
** "I was pretty mad. I was covered in toilet water." Annabeth grumbled. Percy laughed and pecked her forehead, Athena's eyes twitched.  
 **I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing. I stood up, my legs shaky. Annabeth said, "How did you ..." "I don't know."  
** "Do you?" Athena grumbled. Poseidon glared at her. She frowned and turned away.  
 **We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."  
** "Sure I am." Percy smirked. Clarisse bit down on her fist. Ares's face was tomato red.  
 **I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."  
** "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!" Leo burst out laughing and Clarisse punched him. He passed out, and his forehead was red.  
 **Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.  
** "Heh." Jason snorted.  
 **Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her. "What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"  
** "Yeah. What are you thinking?" Piper mused.  
 **"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."  
** "OH EM G! SHE WANTS YOU ON HER TEAM!" Aphrodite then fainted. Annabeth blushed and rolled her eyes. Apollo reached over and picked the book up.  
"The chapters over." He announced.  
"I'll read then," Demeter said and he tossed her the book, "You shouldn't throw things!" she gasped, "But you should have some cereal."

 **So bye!  
**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 8**

 **Hi guys! I'm soooooo sorry. I haven't updated in TWO MONTHS! You see, I had my first kiss. Eek! Then I got my first boyfriend. He's really great.** **And believe it or not, having a boyfriend takes up a lot of time and I totally forgot about updating but I'm back! We have testing coming up so I might not update as much, but once that's over, things should be smoother! Hope you enjoy this chapter.**

" **My Dinner Goes Up in Smoke** " Demeter read.  
 **Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.  
** Athena glared pointedly at Percy who only whistled and looked away. **  
She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts- and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough**.  
"Awesome..." Apollo gasped, staring in awe at the book. Artemis grimaced and rubbed her temples.  
 **Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins. "I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."  
** "Ha! She's giving you the cold soldier!" Ares smirked.  
 **"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets." "Whatever."  
"It wasn't my fault."  
**"Sure it wasn't." Thalia smirked and crossed her arms.  
Percy rolled his eyes.  
 **She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.  
** "How fascinating." Hades mused.  
Leo burst out laughing.  
"What?" Hades asked.  
"He's hopeless, Leo. Don't bother." Demeter sighed.  
Leo nodded as Hades scowled.  
 **"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.  
"Who?"  
"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."  
I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for **once.  
"I feel you." Jason sympathized.  
Him and Percy shared a fist-bump. Annabeth and Piper rolled their eyes. **  
I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shim-mering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.**

 **I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.  
** "Don't," Athena warned. **  
"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."  
** "Like mother like daughter," Poseidon muttered as Athena smiled at Annabeth. **  
"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."  
"Heh." Nico chuckled.  
Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us." "You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"  
**"Exactly." Nico smirked. **  
"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human." "Half-human and half-what?" "I think you know."  
** "I did." Percy agreed. **  
I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.  
"God," I said. "Half-god."  
**"He finally gets it!" Athena threw her hands up.  
"Shut up, Birdbrain." Poseidon muttered.  
"No." **  
Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."  
** "Yup," Poseidon grinned and flicked his hair. Aphrodite snorted. **  
"That's ... crazy."  
** "Very true." **  
"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"  
** "No." Artemis sighed. Apollo glared at her, "We could!"  
Artemis snorted, "Doubt it."  
"If you knew..." Apollo muttered under his breath. **  
"But those are just-" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-gods-" "Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods." "Then who's your dad?"  
** _How sexist_ , Athena thought, but she bit her tongue. **  
Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.  
** Annabeth shifted around a bit. **  
"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."  
** _American History_ , Athena thought, _Sounds like someone I would be attracted to.  
American History, _Poseidon rolled his eyes, _of course Athena would like him  
._ **"He's human."  
"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"  
**Athena smiled. Artemis privately agreed. **  
"Who's your mom, then?"  
"Cabin six."  
"Meaning?"  
Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."  
Okay, I thought. Why not?  
**"He thinks your crazy." Nico stated.  
"Correction, I thought you were crazy." Percy nodded and Annabeth rolled her eyes. **  
"And my dad?" "Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows." "Except my mother. She knew."  
** "I doubt it." Athena said.  
"She did know." Poseidon interjected, leaving Athena fairly surprised.  
 _How could she?_ Athena thought. **  
"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."  
"My dad would have. He loved her."  
**"Very true," Poseidon smiled blissfully. Aphrodite cooed and Athena gagged. **  
Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens.  
** "Sometimes," Hazel muttered. **  
"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"  
** Nico nodded. Hermes blew a bubble with his gum. **  
Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."  
** The atmosphere darkened. **  
I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.  
** "Rude!" Zeus thundered. But he knew Percy was right. **  
"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?" "It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force.  
** Said goddess's looked really offended. **  
The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them.  
** Dionysus looked vaguely interested. **  
Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."  
"So monsters can't get in here?" Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."  
**Annabeth bit her lip and Thalia ran her hand through her hair. **  
"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?" "Practice fights. Practical jokes."  
** "Clarisse..." Leo muttered. She heard him. **  
"Practical jokes?" "The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm." "So ... you're a year-rounder?"  
** Annabeth sighed. Athena raised her eyebrows. **  
Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.  
** "My dad's," Annabeth replied to the questioning gazes. **  
"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."  
** Annabeth grinned proudly. **  
"Why did you come so young?" She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."  
** "Harsh. Rejection!" Leo laughed, until Percy smacked him that is, "Owwie!" **  
"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"  
** "You shouldn't, Perry Johnson." Percy sighed, "I won't bother." **  
"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission.  
** "You wouldn't get permission from me." Dionysus scratched his nose. **  
But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..." "Unless?""You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time ..."Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.  
** "It really hadn't." Clarisse remarked. **  
"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff-" "Ambrosia."  
"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."  
Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you do know some-thing?"  
**"Nope." Jason grinned.  
"Shut up bro." Percy chuckled. **  
"Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"  
** "What does it mean?" Zeus growled.  
"They won't answer," Apollo sighed.  
He was right. **  
She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."  
** "You've been here before?" Piper asked. Annabeth nodded proudly. **  
"You've been to Olympus?"  
** Piper and Annabeth grinned at each other. **  
"Some of us year-rounders-Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others-we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."  
** "Stupid council." Hermes grumbled.  
"Don't insult it!" Apollo glared at Hermes and tossed a rubber duck at his head.  
"Where did you get that?" **  
**"None of your business." **  
"But... how did you get there?" "The Long Island Railroad, of course.  
** "Of course." Leo smirked. **  
You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already.  
** "He never knows anything though." Thalia murmured. **  
"You are a New Yorker, right?" "Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.  
** "Idiot." Ares stated.  
Poseidon left him spitting out water. **  
"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting.  
** "We probably had." Hestia huffed. **  
A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen.  
** Athena looked ready to die if she couldn't find out what was stolen. **  
And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping ... I mean- Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares.  
** "Obviously." Athena and Ares stated. **  
And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon.  
** Poseidon bit his lip. **  
But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."  
** "Nope. Never does."  
"Shut up!" **  
I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.  
** "Or he just couldn't think of any." Thalia muttered.  
"That was probably it." Nico whispered to her. **  
"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. If they would just tell me the problem ..."  
** "Poor Anniebelle!" Leo giggled. Annabeth threw her shoe at his head.  
"That was uncalled for!" Leo gasped. **  
I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle** plan.  
"I was thinking about the capture the flag game." Annabeth shrugged. **  
Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles.  
** Hermes grinned. **  
They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.  
** Hermes's smile slipped away. **  
Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.  
** "I hope someone steals that horn," Hermes muttered. **  
The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.  
** Annabeth winced. **  
"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store." I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.  
** "He probably wasn't. My children are amazing alright." Hermes bragged.  
The demigods forced out some croaky laughs. Annabeth brushed a tear from her cheek. **  
I said, "Thanks."  
"No prob." Luke sat next to me, and pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?" "I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."  
**"HOW DARE YOU!" Zeus bellowed.  
"Do you really think I don't believe in gods anymore?" Percy asked in exasperation.  
"Oh." **  
"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier." The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.  
** Annabeth coughed down a sob. She still missed her old friend. **  
"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.  
** "You bet!" Hermes grinned. Clarisse grimaced. **  
He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."  
** Hermes's brow wrinkled. **  
"The wing-footed messenger guy."  
** "Well, that's insulting." Hermes frowned.  
"Sorry, man." Percy grinned sheepishly. **  
"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors." I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.  
** "Sure..." **  
"You ever meet your dad?" I asked. "Once."  
** Percy coughed loudly and Demeter put down the book and glared at him, "Must I listen to your hacking?"  
"Sorry." Percy hissed through gritted teeth. His bitter expression surprised the gods. **  
I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had any-thing to do with how he got his scar.  
Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."  
**"Take care of each? How funny." Thalia murmured, but she missed Luke too. **  
He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him-even if he was a counselor-should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.  
** The gods laughed heartily, but the demigods remained silent. **  
I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?" Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."  
** "Me too." Leo sighed. **  
"What do you mean?"  
** "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? OH OH OH! WHEN YOU NOD YOUR HEAD YES-OW!"  
"Leo, nobody needs to listen to Justin Bieber right now."  
"Is it too late now to say SORRY?"  
"Yes! It is! Stop with the Justin Bieber!"  
"Who's Justin Bieber?" Apollo whispered to Hermes.  
"No idea." **  
His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... somebody special came to the camp."  
** "Someone special, huh?" Jason grinned and nudged Percy playfully.  
"Shut up, bro." Percy's face flushed.  
His words were met with a quick burst of laughter from the son of Zeus. Poseidon and Zeus certainly could never get along the way their children did. **  
"Somebody special?" "Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."  
** Annabeth sighed unhappily. **  
The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.**  
Poseidon smiled. **  
Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!" The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last.  
** Frank laughed softly, causing Hazel to jump. **  
Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.  
** Artemis smiled proudly. **  
We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.  
** "Cool." Leo whispered even though he had seen that happen himself. **  
In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.  
** "Sounds about right." Annabeth murmured. **  
At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded.  
** Hermes frowned. **  
I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.  
** Percy laughed along with his friends. **  
I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.  
** "That must suck for Chiron." **  
Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey- blond hair.  
** Athena straightened in her seat. **  
Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.  
** "Ew." Piper's nose wrinkled. Clarisse leaned right over and belched in her face.  
"Oh gods, ew!" Piper jumped away as Clarisse snickered and Ares laughed. **  
Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!" Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"  
** The gods grinned. Apollo and Hermes began flexing their muscles.  
"Ew." Artemis gagged and Thalia tried to act casual.

 **Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want-nonalcoholic, of course."  
** "Aw..." Leo pouted.  
Piper smacked him. **  
I said, "Cherry Coke." The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid. Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."  
The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.  
I took a cautious sip. Perfect.  
**Leo's drool dripped into his lap. **  
I drank a toast to my mother. She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...  
** "Hopeless.." Hades muttered under his breath. **  
"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket. I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.  
** "Idiot." Annabeth muttered.  
"Meanie," Percy whined. **  
"Come on," Luke told me. As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw-berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.  
** Apollo licked his lips. **  
Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."  
** "You're kidding." Leo yelped.  
"You already knew that Leo!"  
 **"You're kidding."  
** "Both of you are idiots."  
"Our feelings are hurt." **  
His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.  
** "How stupid is he?" Ares whispered to himself and belched. **  
Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes." I was next.  
I wished I knew what god's name to say.  
**Poseidon cringed. **  
Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please. I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames. When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.  
** "Why would he?" Athena frowned. **  
It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.  
** "Maybe we can. You will never know." Athena smirked.  
 **When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention. Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats.  
** "Rude!" Hazel gasped.  
"Whatever," Dionysus mumbled. **  
Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."**  
 **A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.  
** "I will pound your face into the ground, Jackson."  
"Please don't!" **  
"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."  
** "Ah, Mr. D and his horrible nick-names."  
"Shut it, Anniebelle."  
"Wow."  
 **Chiron murmured something. "Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."  
** "How un-enthusiastic are you?" Apollo gasped in horror.  
Dionysus ignored him. Or maybe he was to drunk to notice the god. **  
Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing- along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.  
** "You are home!" Leo smiled, "Camp-Half-Blood is boss!"  
"Leo."  
"Yeah, Beauty Queen?"  
"Shut up."  
"Ok..." **  
Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.  
** "Ew! So you slept on the floor?" Aphrodite shrieked. **  
**"No, he slept underwater."  
"Really?" Aphrodite gasped.  
"No." Hermes snorted. **  
My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.  
** Percy sighed in content, eyes closed in peace. Annabeth stroked his hair. **  
When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.  
That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.  
**"Exciting!" Apollo exclaimed, along with some crazy jazz hands. **  
I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.  
** "Aw." Aphrodite pouted and a bit of drool fell from Ares's mouth and dribbled down his chin.  
Demeter rolled her eyes, "Here, why don't you read Hazel?"  
"Ok..." Hazel hesitantly took the book and opened it.

 **Hope you enjoyed this chapter! So how about I post the next chapter once I get 62 reviews? So go review! Go. I'm watching you...In the meantime I'll be all happy and stupid about my first boyfriend...Don't judge me! Go review!**


	10. IMPORTANT!

Hi guys! Sorry for not posting in like FOREVER! I'm really sorry. I'm going to be taking a break. Don't worry I'm coming back! I'll be taking a break until June 24th which is the first day of my summer break and I am sooo excited! We have all these awesome activities coming up at school so I'm just gonna stay away from fanfiction until summer! Then we can be lazy together! See ya then! 3


	11. AN (Important)

Hi...so its been a while...DONT KILL ME! Anyways, I've been having a lot of problems with so I'm announcing that I'm not going to be writing on here anymore. But you can go and follow my Wattpad! Yay! (00Delia00) Creative, I know. So that's it...please don't kill me...


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